mandate
Forms
- Plural
- mandates
- present (v1)
- mandate
- past (v2)
- mandated
- past participle (v3)
- mandated
- present participle
- mandating
- 3rd person singular
- mandates
Definitions
1.An official or authoritative command; an order or injunction; a commission; a judicial precept; an authorization.
2.The order or authority to do something, as granted to a politician by the electorate.
- John Tyler and James K. Polk both regarded the election results as a mandate for the annexation of Texas.
- Instead, May, more sheep than shepherd, has feebly allowed herself to be driven ever further towards an extreme, inflexible, take-it-or-leave-it stance for which she has neither mandate nor credible grounds.
3.A period during which a government is in power.
- Throughout his last mandate, from 1980 to 1984, Mr. Trudeau insisted that we see ourselves solely as Canadians, that we set aside the historic compromises that underlie Canada as a federation.
4.Alternative form of man date: a date between two men.
1.To (officially) require someone to do something or act in a certain way, to give them the authority to do so; to command.
- A delegate conference was called, and garages invited to mandate their representatives to vote for or against continuance.
- Last June Illinois passed a bill requiring the state to trace sexual partners, […] but mandating the department to preserve the confidentiality of reports.
2.To make mandatory.
- As the Superintendent of Austin, TX, schools I have mandated that our kids must be masked when they start school on Tuesday.
- Federal law mandates that at least one nongroup insurer in your state must provide coverage to everyone, regardless of health issues.
- The bill seeks to make IVF treatment more affordable by mandating coverage for fertility treatments under employer-sponsored insurance and certain public insurance plans.
3.To repeat, rehearse sermons or speeches aloud.
- After I have mandated my exercices.
- I had only from that evening at six till Sabbath to mandate my two discourses.
- He rose and walked his study, ‘mandating’ his opening sentences with appropriate gestures.
4.To administer or assign a territory to a nation under a mandate.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3550
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Word family
Etymology
First attested in 1521; borrowed from Latin mandātum (“a charge, order, command, commission, injunction”), substantivized from the neuter forms of mandātus, perfect passive participle of mandō (“to commit to one's charge, order, command, commission, literally to put into one's hands”) (see -ate (noun-forming suffix)), from manus (“hand”) + -dere (“to put”).